Once you get into this great stream of history, you can’t get out.

Knowledge of what is does not open the door directly to what should be.

Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living, it’s a way of looking at life through the wrong end of a telescope, and that enables you to laugh at life’s realities.

When you’re doing a film and the majority of the film is cast black, for me, it’s most important to get people to view those movies as just movies, as just good movies. At the end of the day, regardless of the color of the cast, we’re all doing the same thing in this business: trying to make a good film.

After the first blush of sin comes its indifference.

Happiness is a how; not a what. A talent, not an object.

Every person takes the limits of their own field of vision for the limits of the world.

Someone has to die in order that the rest of us should value life more.

In a universe that’s an intelligent system with a divine creative force supporting it, there simply can be no accidents. As tough as it is to acknowledge, you had to go through what you went through in order to get to where you are today, and the evidence is that you did.

I cannot swallow whole the view of Lincoln as the Great Emancipator.

The average age of the world’s greatest civilizations from the beginning of history has been about 200 years.

At any street corner the feeling of absurdity can strike any man in the face.

Getting older is no problem. You just have to live long enough.

I seldom end up where I wanted to go, but almost always end up where I need to be.

How inappropriate to call this planet Earth when it is quite clearly Ocean.

Growing old is like being increasingly penalized for a crime you haven’t committed.

Ask an older person you respect to tell you his or her greatest regret.

Be content with what you have; rejoice in the way things are. When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you.

We all want progress, but if you’re on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; in that case, the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive.

Nothing is enough for the man to whom enough is too little.

I can see, and that is why I can be happy, in what you call the dark, but which to me is golden. I can see a God-made world, not a manmade world.

History has demonstrated that the most notable winners usually encountered heartbreaking obstacles before they triumphed. They won because they refused to become discouraged by their defeats.

There is nothing wrong with men possessing riches. The wrong comes when riches possess men.

But although all our knowledge begins with experience, it does not follow that it arises from experience.

In the business world, the rearview mirror is always clearer than the windshield.

Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads.

The Bible is one of the most genocidal books in history.

In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.

I don’t think I’ve ever felt that same kind of peace, the kind of serenity that I felt after acknowledging that maybe I was going to die of this TB.

It is better to be beautiful than to be good. But… it is better to be good than to be ugly.

The world forgetting, by the world forgot.

Those who had demanded no more than an end to the bombing of North Vietnam and a commitment to negotiations saw their demands being realized, and lapsed into silence.

History has proven that each generation of Howard graduates will forge the way forward for our country and our world.

I’ve had some ‚riotous excursions of the human spirit‘ alongside the young Sailors and Marines, and it’s time to leave the stage to the young leaders who got their rank the old-fashioned way – they earned their stripes in combat.

Some people regard private enterprise as a predatory tiger to be shot. Others look on it as a cow they can milk. Not enough people see it as a healthy horse, pulling a sturdy wagon.

You have to understand that people that are hurting are going to criticize.

The ideas associated with the problems of the development of science, as far as I can see by looking around me, are not of the kind that everyone appreciates.

The wisdom of the wise and the experience of the ages are perpetuated by quotations.

Dying is one of the few things that can be done as easily lying down.

I’m not afraid to look like a big, hairy, smelly, foreign devil in Tokyo, though I do my best not to, I really do.

Ronald Reagan used to alarm his Soviet counterparts by saying that surely they’d both unite against an invasion from Mars.

Is it not strange that desire should so many years outlive performance?

The world is like a grand staircase, some are going up and some are going down.

Wonder is the basis of worship.

Movies are fun, but they are no cure for cancer.

Regarding life, the wisest men of all ages have judged alike: it is worthless.

However my parents – both of whom came from impoverished backgrounds and neither of whom had been to college, took the view that my overactive imagination was an amusing quirk that would never pay a mortgage or secure a pension.

The only reason for time is so that everything doesn’t happen at once.

When you look at the light bulb above you, you remember Thomas Alva Edison. When the telephone bell rings, you remember Alexander Graham Bell. Marie Curie was the first woman to win the Nobel Prize. When you see the blue sky, you think of Sir C.V. Raman.

There are no such things as Flowers there are only gladdened Leaves.

When a man fell into his anecdotage it was a sign for him to retire from the world.

Ordinary readers, forgive my paradoxes: one must make them when one reflects; and whatever you may say, I prefer being a man with paradoxes than a man with prejudices.

I love those who can smile in trouble, who can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. ‚Tis the business of little minds to shrink, but they whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves their conduct, will pursue their principles unto death.

Farming looks mighty easy when your plow is a pencil and you’re a thousand miles from the corn field.

I have seen enough of one war never to wish to see another.

It’s not that I’m afraid to die. I just don’t want to be there when it happens.

Man is not a machine that can be remodelled for quite other purposes as occasion demands, in the hope that it will go on functioning as regularly as before but in a quite different way. He carries his whole history with him; in his very structure is written the history of mankind.

Old friends pass away, new friends appear. It is just like the days. An old day passes, a new day arrives. The important thing is to make it meaningful: a meaningful friend – or a meaningful day.

Who is the most sensible person? The one who finds what is to their own advantage in all that happens to them.

I was a journeyman chef of middling abilities. Whatever authority I have as a commenter on this world comes from the sheer weight of 28 years in the business. I kicked around for 28 years and came out the other end alive and able to form a sentence.

There is a fine balance between honoring the past and losing yourself in it. For example, you can acknowledge and learn from mistakes you made, and then move on and refocus on the now. It is called forgiving yourself.